Hill House example essay topic

THE HAUNTING ON HILL HOUSE By: Shirley Jackson Eleanor Vance has always been a loner shy, defenseless, and angrily resentful of the 11 years she lost while nursing her dying mother. She had spent so long alone, with no one to love, never had a real home and without any happiness in her life. Eleanor has always sensed that one day something big would happen, and one day it does. She receives an unusual invitation from Dr. John Montague, a man fascinated by 'supernatural manifestations. ' He had been looking for a haunted house all his life. Then He heard about Hill House and he knows that he couldn't let it go.

His intentions with Hill House, was to go there, live there for a while and take notes of everything that occurs within the house, kind of like ghost hunting. So he rents Hill House for three months, organizes a ghost watch, inviting three people who have been touched by unearthly events. A psychic event from Eleanor's childhood makes her qualify to be a part of Montague's unusual study, along with stubborn Theodora who was the not thing like Eleanor, and Luke who is the nephew of the owner of Hill House. The reason for him being there is because the family lawyer told Dr. Montague that he couldn't rent the house without the confining presence of a member of the family during his stay. They all meet at Hill House an estate in New England. This is where it all begins.

Hill House is a foreboding structure of towers, Gothic spires, gargoyles, strange angles, and rooms within rooms. Through out their stay, they would hear many noises, feel many sensation of fear and suspense. It always had you waiting for something to happen or for harm to come to these people, yet it was all just the haunting of the house, the noises, the scratching of the doors, and strange things would happen that will always make the group of four divide themselves to different parts of the house. Each person had very different characteristics, but Eleanor was special in her own way.

Although Eleanor's first reaction was to run away from the house, the house has an interesting effect, and she begins to feel a strange kind of happiness, which made her want to stay. Eleanor is an attraction for the supernatural. She hears deathly wails, feels terrible chills, and sees ghostly apparitions. Neither Theodora nor Luke catches the attention of so much ghostly company. So Eleanor started liking the house and was felling that she was becoming part of it, as one. She started t hear voice within her mind, it was like the house was trying to take control of her.

Then the others began to worry about her state of mind and they decided to make her leave the house so she can forget all of this. She decided to kill herself by crashing into a tree. The reason she chose this drastic measure was that she believed that her body would leave the Hill House but her spirit would remain. What I take from this story and what I feel I learned is that at times when you strongly believe in something, you can make things happen.

At the same time this book shows that the mind is fragile and when it begins to believe in negative things, a negative result will come out of it. In this case, Eleanor strongly believes the attraction of the house has to do with her. She convinces herself that this haunted house was her home. Which made the others get her out of the house and for that reason she decides to kill herself which made her think by doing this, her spirit would stay at Hill house leaving us wondering how far the mind can go.